Dehumidifiers for dehumidifying rooms or other space have been widely known. A conventional dehumidifier includes two adsorption components which alternately dehumidify air.
Patent Document 1 describes a dehumidifier of this type. In the dehumidifier, a first adsorption component and a second adsorption component are provided in an air passageway in a casing. In each of the adsorption components, an adsorbent for adsorbing or desorbing moisture is supported on a base material in which air is allowed to flow. In the casing, a condenser (i.e., a heating mechanism) for heating air is provided upstream of the adsorption components in the direction of an air flow.
The dehumidifier shown in Patent Document 1 alternately performs two operations as follows. First, in a first operation, moisture in the air is adsorbed by the first adsorption component so that the air is dehumidified. The dehumidified air is supplied to a room. In the first operation, the air heated by the condenser is supplied to the second adsorption component so that the second adsorption component is heated. Consequently, moisture is released from the second adsorption component into the air, thereby reproducing the second adsorption component. The air used for the reproduction of the second adsorption component is exhausted to outside the room. On the other hand, in a second operation, moisture in the air is adsorbed by the second adsorption component, and at the same time, the first adsorption component is reproduced. In this manner, the dehumidifier performs a so-called batch operation in which the dehumidifier alternately switches between the first operation and the second operation after each predetermined time, thereby continuously dehumidifying the air in the room without degradation of adsorption performance (i.e., dehumidification performance) of the adsorption components.